Broadcast fakery

Do you remember the movie Broadcast News in which Holly Hunter ends her romantic relationship with the anchorman played by William Hurt because he faked a tear for an interview? The absurdity was that in an industry filled with fakery, this one little fakery “went too far” for the idealistic Hunter. Anyway, I was reminded of that when I saw this story. According to the AP, Michelle Kosinski, a reporter for the Today show,

was paddling in a canoe during a live report about flooding in Wayne, N.J. While she talked, two men walked between her and the camera, making it apparent that the water where she was floating was barely ankle-deep….

Later, an NBC News spokeswoman explained that Kosinski had been riding in deeper water near an overflowing river down the street, but there were concerns that the current was too strong for her.

“It’s not like we were trying to pass it off as something it wasn’t,” spokeswoman Lauren Kapp said.

Notwithstanding its phony self-righteousness, Broadcast News, made in 1987, contained a vestige of the older liberal idealism that now seems entirely vanished. Today’s broadcast fakers are beyond embarrassment.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 15, 2005 11:36 AM | Send